Barbed Wire and Mandolins

This documentary introduces us to Italian-Canadians whose lives were disrupted and uprooted by seclusion in internment camps during the Second World War. On June 10, 1940, Italy entered WWII. Overnight, the Canadian government came to see the country's 112,000 Italian-Canadians as a threat to its national security. The RCMP rounded up thousands of people it considered fascist sympathizers. Seven hundred of them were held for up to three years in internment camps, most of them at Petawawa, Ontario. None were ever charged with a criminal offence. Remarkably, the former internees are not bitter as they look back on the way their own country treated them.

my published letter in G&M March 7,2012) re Can's WW!! human rights stain=an intelligence failure re alleged fascists; better re mobsters
by James R Dubro on Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at 6:56am ·
Historical stain
The internment of more than 600 Italian Canadians during the Second World War was not entirely “a dark chapter” (Shining Light On A Dark Chapter: The Internment Of Italian Canadians – Arts, March 6). The documents that had to be filed on each internee and signed by government officials and civil servants make it clear that the Mackenzie King government's original aim was to imprison Italian Fascist Party members and Italian gangsters.
But government documents show they often deliberately erred if there was the slightest intelligence that a proposed internee was either a Fascist or supporter of Benito Mussolini. Many innocent people were arrested and interned because of serious lapses in intelligence (notably the case of wealthy contractor James Franceschini).
The intelligence on organized crime was a bit better researched, as the RCMP had made a list of the top gangsters in Ontario just before the war started. But the fact that many internees such as Mr. Franceschini had no connection to fascism or the mob was not only an intelligence failure but a stain on Canada's wartime human-rights record.
James Dubro, Toronto

abookguy, 7 Mar 2012

Thank you Canada, and thank you Nicola. this theme is never addressed. Enjoy it here, it is beautifully written and filmed.